Lulu's Avatar
by GirlnamedPete
Summary: Inspired by Mala & Marastar... Natalie's better angels have gone out for coffee and a smoke.
1.

"I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel   
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor   
Illusion never changed into something real   
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn   
You're a little late, I'm already torn" Natalie Imbruglia  
  
1.   
  
Natalie and John had both suffered death and sought redemption, but she had slowly revived her life, while he insisted on bearing his cross every day. Even Dante had his dead beloved Beatrice to lead him from Hell into redemption, but John would not follow where his ghost led, much less listen to Natalie.  
  
So, if he intended to be the martyr, not her lover, she would be his Satan, to be the tempter and perhaps tormentor that brought him back to the land of the living. He needed to see the world as something to live in, rather than be suffered. And she would use Paul as her foil; Paul, who amused himself by wooing this wounded swan in front of John, would be her pawn to snare John. Natalie knew that whenever she was at Capricorn, Paul would usually soon arrive, on the prowl for her money and whatever he could get with it. Invariably, as if by design, it also meant that John would show up due to a completely rational need for jazz.  
  
Natalie knew that all she had to do was utter a few forlorn words, paired with a faraway look, and she could hear Paul's little brain engine rattle and clank to life.  
  
"I just wish I could feel... I don't know... happy and free and... you know, that euphoria that you get off a bottle of really good champagne but before the hangover?"  
  
Paul smirked and crossed behind Natalie to position himself so that McBain would have to watch his lips touch her ear as he whispered, "Hey, if you want one-stop shopping for your pharmaceutical needs, I got a hospital full of regret-less euphorics at my disposal"  
  
"Hmmmm..." Natalie lightly giggled, while rolling her head back so that John would only be able to see her smiling lips before Paul could plant a kiss on her. Although she had her eyes closed, the flame-haired temptress could sense John seething and hear Paul thinking he was reeling her in; one wanted to save her and the other wanted to have her, but Natalie was fully in charge of her destiny. 


	2. 

2.  
  
Natalie was utterly pleased with herself. By peripheral vision, she could see John's eyes riveted on her, and giggled playfully; after all, she knew he wanted her, but if he was going to maintain distance out of "friendship", then goddammit, she was going to enjoy his stand-in. And right in front of McBain, too - even better, because if he insisted on tormenting himself (and her!) with his passive-aggressive passion, then _let_ him watch her snuggling with the weasel!  
  
Paul took Natalie's enjoyment as further invitation to him; his one-track mind was too busy thinking he was playing Natalie, when in fact she was playing both him and John off one another for her amusement. Paul reached into his jacket pocket, and withdrew his hand, a hand that John watched him draw slowly along her face, cheek and chin, before opening palm up in front of her face.  
  
Natalie looked down, and purred, "Now that's an inspired idea!" Before her, in Paul's clammy, grubby hand, were two Ecstasy tablets, ingeniously labelled "safe sex" -"as in not _even_ gonna get anywhere near that, Cramer" Natalie thought to herself.  
  
John shuddered inside as he watched Natalie unflinchingly pluck something from Paul's hand and pop it in her mouth, then take a sip from her drink, and tip her head to Paul for a kiss. After she put her hand to her mouth, Natalie listened for the head of John McBain to explode from clear across the room.  
  



	3. 

3.  
  
As Paul Cramer sucked at her lips, Natalie's attention was diverted across the room, where she sensed John squirming in his seat. She closed her eyes and reengaged Paul's kiss, sloppy as it was. She was remembering a song she'd heard the night before on an oldies station cranked up in the back at Rodi's: "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." The rest of the lyrics were the kind of unfathomable dopehead stuff you get on classic rock stations, but at least this one had a point.  
  
John, meanwhile, had taken a long draw off his longneck when he saw Natalie drop a dose of whatever was Paul Cramer's party drug of choice. He figured, couldn't be a roofie or GHB, because, even though Cramer was fully capable of hiding it in a girl's drink, and probably had done once or twice in his life, it's not something he'd hold out to show her. Nah, had to be ecstasy or some other hallucinogen that would dull her eyes to what a slime he was while he reeled her in. And something that would make her more willing to give him what he wanted; which turned his stomach and made him shudder: that Paul was holding in such low esteem what John regarded as so pure and wonderful about her.  
  
That Natalie Vega had walls around her that she was careful whom she let through. Her walls were built of hard won survival, fragile confidence, beauty, pain, and discovery. And she had shown herself willing to let John through; if only he'd drop his own walls to have her: walls whose every other brick had the name Caitlin engraved on it, whether they were made of sorrow, bravery, regret, street smarts, guilt or love. And that Paul was trying to bust his way through to Natalie's heart like a barbarian storming the gates was igniting an fire in his head... no, in his heart.  
  
As the drummer sat down and began striking his set while the bass player stood his bass upright and plucked a few notes, the house light began to fade. Natalie took the opportunity to shoot the quickest of unnoticed glances at John, not to enjoy his softly chisled face and dark brooding hound-dog eyes, but merely to reassure herself her quarry was still in the game; though Paul's antics were diverting; it was the only thing that made Paul's kisses bearable.  
  
He was looking downward; before the lights completed dimmed he'd picked up his cell phone and placed a call.  
  



	4. 

4. Paul nuzzled Natalie's neck and hummed along with the clarinet player into her ear a few moments, before Natalie was released from his clutches as he pulled an object from his pocket. She savored her personal space a moment before he leaned in again whispered to her, "I really gotta answer this page; I'll be outside for a few minutes." She smiled and mouthed an OK as he stroked her hair and gave her a peck on her cheek.  
  
She exhaled a long controlled breath, composing herself now that she was alone. But not really, she thought to herself. She was sure that, assuming John McBain was still in the house -and she knew he was, what with the dark lights, the liquor, the music and Paul- he'd be riding up on his white horse to save her. Except, her white knight was hardly a man of action; hell, he was hardly even a man of words. His chivalry embraced the brave knight who slew dragons and battled evil demons, rescued the fair princess, and they lived happily ever after. But the fairy tales never elaborated about how the knight needed therapy to deal with his justifiable but violent repressed past, so that both he and his princess can cease defining themselves by their pasts, and engage in healing dialogue that bonds their relationship.  
  
As soon as Paul left, Natalie drank the entire glass of water that had been sitting in front of her, untouched. The lights over the bar had lit her just enough for him to watch unnoticed from his table in the dark. He knew the curves of her face so well, that he hardly even needed lamplight to know she was smiling; the air around her was more radiant when she smiled. John knew she was getting high. He'd seen enough clubbers on X to know the signs.  
  
"Your boy not like jazz?" She could feel the flint in his voice even before she felt his prescence. She had been listening to the music with her eyes closed for a moment, but she knew he would come to her, dragging his cross with him. She opened her eyes to look at him.  
  
"Dunno, got a page, had to return the call; no biggie, he'll be back..." she smiled.  
  
"I tend to doubt that," he replied, confidence in his eyes.  
  
She looked right into his eyes. God, so deep, so beautiful, so entrancing. "Hmm, you heard the call?"  
  
"No," he replied, as a smirk gently tugged the sides of his mouth upward, she always thought it looked like he was fighting invisible strings forcing him to smile, "I _sent_ the page."  
  
"Ah," she breathed, completely unsurprised. "So now that you have this alone time with me that you've masterfully engineered, the question that inevitably arises is _What are you going to do with it?_" To force her point, she turned on the barstool to face him, fixing her eyes on his.  
  
John reached over, looking around quickly first to make sure no one was watching them, and felt Natalie's forehead—too warm. She sighed very slightly at the contact. When that minimal touch garnered an "Mmmm..." from Natalie, he mined himself for self-control, "I have trouble keeping my hands in appropriate places when this girl's sober. And now I gotta babysit her the next eight hours. "  
  
He could just kill that Paul Cramer, dosing a beautiful woman to think he's the bomb for the rest of the evening, and having absolutely no compunction about keeping his hands off because it's only the drug making her feel like that.  
  
"Let me get you home. And I'm going to stay until the X is out of your system—I don't want to find out tomorrow morning that Cramer caught up with you," John said, gently grasping Natalie's arm to get her to move. He threw a twenty down on the bar to cover the tab.  
  
Natalie slinked slowly away from the bar, crushing between John and the barstool instead of exiting the other way where there was space - trying to maximize her body contact with him. She'd just choreographed a perfect opportunity to see if he'd act on her vulnerability, and she wasn't about to waste it. She deliberately stumbled into him, and John automatically caught her up in what was _dangerously close_ to being an embrace— he felt like a blanket around her... wrapping her with his warmth, his voice, his touch.  
  
John noticed Natalie was humming something as they left Capricorn and he held open her coat.  
  
"Never would have guessed you as a CSN fan, Natalie."  
  
"Huh?" she replied, playing at getting into her coat while swaying lightly to some inner serenade.  
  
"That tune, it's Crosby, Stills & Nash."  
  
"Oh, yeah, that. Just some song I heard on the radio in the back room at Rodi's. Some of the words stuck in my head, y'know," she continued to hum.  
  
"Yeah, I kinda like the line that goes _ ' the eagle flies with the dove,' _ " he was looking into her eyes as he helped her finish getting her coat buttoned.  
  
She stared back, smiling a cheshire grin, "Yeah, and _ 'if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with,' _ is the one I seem to remember," she replied as she pulled away singing the refrain, _ "Doo-doo doo doo doo doo doo-doo..." _   
  
Outwardly blithe and unaffected by John's "rescue" of the damsel in distess, Natalie was inwardly delighted at John's promise to stay with her till she was no longer in any danger, or worse, in danger of running off with Paul. "Means I get to play with your resistance all night, or until you say uncle one way or another..." 


End file.
